As I sit here staring at my laptop screen, for the 12th hour today, I have to wonder if it is all worth it.

With my exams and assignments due this week, I have spent so much time engrossed in my laptop, to the point where I now have a constant headache. What makes it worse though is that, I feel as though I have complete forgotten how to switch off. As I lay in bed thinking about it, I began to wonder if its not just me and that maybe as a society we have forgotten how to 'switch off'.

I made a new years resolution to put down my phone and read before bed. Shutting down my laptop, putting my PJ's on, getting under my duvet and going straight on my phone does not count as going to bed, i'd close my laptop at 11pm and my eyes a 4am, it was ridiculous. Of course, I don't know why I am talking in past tense, because its only the 11th day of the new year and already I have failed (hence, why I am writing this at 5am). I've been wondering why I have been feeling so rubbish about myself recently and then it clicked, my brain has been completely lacking in any sort of meaningful stimulation. Of course of been revising and essay writing, but this isn't something interesting to me (those who say it does, is lying). I need creativity, escapism, and something that doesn't make my brain want to explode, and currently, I don't get any of those things from a laptop. 2 days, that's how long it normally takes me to read an average size book. Yet, I got The Girl on the Train for Christmas and i'm not even half way through it - even though i'm thoroughly enjoying it! How did I get like this?

I'm sitting here writing this, watching the clock tick closer and closer to the time my alarm is set to go off - 8:30am. I've promised myself tomorrow will be productive, and i'll take it easy and have a chill day before my exam on Thursday so that my brain is at its prime for the big day. But will that happen? Of course not, i'll be surprised if I sleep at all tomorrow night to be honest. My biggest problem around exam time is that I need to learn that what will be, will be. Whatever I don't know at midnight before the exam i'm never going to, so I should probably shut the laptop down, read for a bit to wind my brain down and get a good nights sleep - yeah, right!

Switch the screen off, enjoy the real world!

Laura xoxo